1#10 Dan Bailey: the guidebook writer
“This is it. This is the most in touch with the world, and peaceful and enthused I’ve felt. Ever.”
Episode #10…
… stars guidebook writer, website editor, mountaineering journalist and all round outdoor adept Dan Bailey.
When not researching and writing up gleaming new guidebooks to his adopted homeland of Scotland, London-born Dan lives the life of a professional outdoor scribe, managing a popular hillwalking website, publishing intricate route descriptions of the UK’s most inspiring mountain adventures, and tirelessly reviewing reams of expensive kit so that you don’t have to. It’s a tough life, I tells ya.
Beyond this insight into one of planet Earth’s true “dream jobs”, Dan has enjoyed mountaineering epics from the Pyrenees to the Rwenzori (though he seems to enjoy an ice-clad Scotland best) and was once struck by lightning on the Cobbler. It’s every bit the anecdote that you would hope it to be.
You can see Dan’s Cicerone author page here: cicerone.co.uk/authors/dan-bailey and make sure to visit UKHillwalking.com to see the fruits of his daily labours too.
[episode recorded on 02/09/21]
00:00 - Introduction
01:44 - Welcome, guidebook writing
11:22 - Precious feedback, and being recognised on the hill
15:06 - “Over 10-15 years each book may have earned me a reasonable year’s salary”
16:50 - Struck by lightning on the Cobbler: (holes in boots, exploding mugs and “my whole body was buzzing, like when you bang your funny bone and you get that nerve tingle. I had that from head to toe”). Eventually being poked and prodded by doctors
26:43 - Outdoor journalism, editing ukhillwalking.com, “I’ve always understood how lucky I am to do that and call it work.”
35:42 - Exploring every part of the UK mountains, “there are hills and even whole ranges that I haven’t even visited yet, so there’s always more to do”
39:58 - Living remotely, “nine miles down a single track road from Gairloch… so a good 140 mile round trip on mountain roads in the winter to get the groceries in. We were menu planning quite closely.”
43:30 - Reviewing outdoor gear for a living “It’s a real perk to have all this free gear showered on us, but it’s a real job as well.”
47:06 - Calling all EU47 / UK12 boot-wearing hillwalkers
48:35 - A “power imbalance” between outdoor brands and outdoor media?
51:38 - An epic tale… climbing the three highest peaks in Africa, connected by public transport, “three weeks of manic bus travel”
57:00 - (from https://www.britannica.com/place/Margherita-Peak... “It was first climbed in 1906 by an expedition led by Luigi Amedeo Abruzzi and was named for Queen Margherita of Italy”)
61:00 - “We got into a little bivvy hut which is sort of like a metal coffin…”
63:53 - Greatest Mountain Memory - a youthful awakening in the Pyrenees “The feeling of freedom and limitless possibility that you get when this mountain world opens to you for the first time, and you’re there under your own steam with no particular agenda… this is it. This is the most in touch with the world, and peaceful and enthused I’ve felt. Ever. I suppose I’m always trying to recreate that youthful, wide-eyed experience of the mountains.”
68:48 - All the time, money, freedom, where do you go? “I like Scotland a lot, but I’ve never been to Scotland’s big sister, which is Norway… I’m going to drive from south to north over four months picking off mountaineering routes.”
